1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to sorter mechanisms and more particularly mechanisms for sorting discrete sheets and stacking the sheets in a preselected order.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The advance in technology concerning copying and duplicating machines has resulted in their widespread and increasing use for most office copying needs. Multiple copies of a single document are now turned out rapidly with high quality. However, when making a number of copies from a multipage document, the document must be disassembled, multiple copies made of each sheet, the multiple copies must be collated to form a completed copy of the original, and the original document must be reassembled. This may involve considerable clerical time and effort which places a limit on the overall efficiency of the copy machine itself.
In order to increase the efficiency of office copiers and aid them in reaching their full potential, sorter mechanisms have been developed which automatically perform the former clerical step of stacking and collating the multiple copies. However, when the copier machine has the capability of accomplishing both one-sided and two-sided copying, collating has heretofore been possible with only one copy format. The complicating aspect involved in stacking and collating sheets from a copier capable of both copy formats is that in one-sided copying the copy receiver sheet exits the copier in one orientation (e.g. copy side face-down) while in two-sided copying the copy receiving sheet exits the copier in the opposite orientation (e.g. first copy side face-up). Thus, if the sorter mechanism is set to properly stack sheets copied in one format in a preselected order (e.g. numerical order), sheets copied in the other format will not be stacked in the same desired order.